Phobos, Kerdos, Doxa

On Thursday, Eric Blair pointed me to a couple of fascinating essays by author Dan Simmons. One was a short story of sorts where Simmons is visited by someone he terms the Time Traveler from several decades in the future, telling Simmons of the grim future that awaits the United States as a result of the Century War, as the Global War on Terror has come to be known. The next was Simmons' response to the enormous amount of hate mail received after posting the previous essay. Both essays mesh well with the central theme of Tom Kratman's A Desert Called Peace, which I am now one hundred forty pages from finishing.

Even before I read these essays, I was already aware of how well-read an author Simmons is. In The Terror, Simmons shows his extensive knowledge of the background of the expedition's commander (Sir John Franklin) and executive officer (Capt. Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier), both of whom were real historical figures. Moreover, Simmons' ability to combine historical fact with his own special brand of speculative fiction makes what should be an unbelievable tale of horror (featuring a Lovecraftian-type monster picking off the crew one-by-one) into an intensely believable story of misery and hardship.

That being known, I was not surprised to see that Simmons applied a similar level of historical background to his two essays. Among the books he consulted were The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan, The Book of War: 25 Centuries of Great War Writing edited by John Keegan, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order by Samuel P. Huntington, Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History by Lee Harris, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History by Philip Bobbit, Replay by Ken Grimwood, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris, Robert D. Kaplan's Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethic,
and Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism. Having read a few of the books mentioned, I have a general idea where Simmons is coming from.

In the first essay, the Time Traveler visits Simmons at home, telling him of the horrible state of the world several decades hence. In so doing, the Time Traveler brings up a conflict from ancient Greek history: the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). The conversation between the time traveler and Simmons continues thus:

"What do you know about Syracuse?" he [the Time Traveler] asked suddenly.

I blinked again. "Syracuse, New York?" I said at last.

He shook his head slowly. "Thucydides' Syracuse," he said softly. "Syracuse circa 415 B.C. The Syracuse Athens invaded."

"It was . . . part of the Peloponnesian War," I ventured.

He waited for more but I had no more to give. I loved history, but let's admit it . . . that was ancient history. Still, I felt that I should have been able to tell him, or at least remember, why Syracuse was important in the Peloponnesian War or why they fought there or who fought exactly or who had won or . . . something. I hated feeling like a dull student around this scarred old man.

"The war between Athens and its allies and Sparta and its allies – a war for nothing less than hegemony over the entire known world at that time – began in 431 B.C.," said the Time Traveler. "After seventeen years of almost constant fighting, with no clear or permanent advantage for either side, Athens – under the leadership of Alcibiades at the time – decided to widen the war by conquering Sicily, the 'Great Greece' they called it, an area full of colonies and the key to maritime commerce at the time the way the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf is today."

I hate being lectured to at the best of times, but something about the tone and timber of the Time Traveler's voice – soft, deep, rasping, perhaps thickened a bit by the whiskey – made this sound more like a story being told around a campfire. Or perhaps a bit like one of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon stories on "Prairie Home Companion." I settled deeper into my chair and listened.

"Syracuse wasn't a direct enemy of the Athenians," continued the Time Traveler, "but it was quarreling with a local Athenian colony and the democracy of Athens used that as an excuse to launch a major expedition against it. It was a big deal – Athens sent 136 triremes, the best fighting ships in the world then – and landed 5,000 soldiers right under the city's walls.

"The Athenians had enjoyed so much military success in recent years, including their invasion of Melos, that Thucydides wrote – So thoroughly had the present prosperity persuaded the Athenians that nothing could withstand them, and that they could achieve what was possible and what was impracticable alike, with means ample or inadequate it mattered not. The reason for this was their general extraordinary success, which made them confuse their strengths with their hopes."

"Oh, hell," I said, "this is going to be a lecture about Iraq, isn't it? Look . . . I voted for John Kerry last year and . . ."

"Listen to me," the Time Traveler said softly. It was not a request. There was steel in that soft, rasping voice. "Nicias, the Athenian general who ended up leading the invasion, warned against it in 415 B.C. He said – 'We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies, and that he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this to find everything hostile to him'. Nicias, along with the Athenian poet and general Demosthenes, would see their armies destroyed at Syracuse and then they would both be captured and put to death by the Syracusans. Sparta won big in that two-year debacle for Athens. The war went on for seven more years, but Athens never recovered from that overreaching at Syracuse, and in the end . . . Sparta destroyed it. Conquered the Athenian empire and its allies, destroyed Athens' democracy, ruined the entire balance of power and Greek hegemony over the known world at the time . . . ruined everything. All because of a miscalculation about Syracuse."

The fictional Simmons, thinking that the Time Traveler's story may be a criticism of America's invasion of Iraq, responds:

"All right, goddammit," I said irritably. "Your point's made. So we shouldn't have invaded Iraq in this . . . what did you call it? This Long War with Islam, this Century War. We're all beginning to realize that here by the end of 2005."

The Time Traveler shook his head. "You've understood nothing I've said. Nothing. Athens failed in Syracuse – and doomed their democracy – not because they fought in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but because they weren't ruthless enough. They had grown soft since their slaughter of every combat-age man and boy on the island of Melos, the enslavement of every woman and girl there. The democratic Athenians, in regards to Syracuse, thought that once engaged they could win without absolute commitment to winning, claim victory without being as ruthless and merciless as their Spartan and Syracusan enemies. The Athenians, once defeat loomed, turned against their own generals and political leaders – and their official soothsayers. If General Nicias or Demosthenes had survived their captivity and returned home, the people who sent them off with parades and strewn flower petals in their path would have ripped them limb from limb. They blamed their own leaders like a sun-maddened dog ripping and chewing at its own belly."

And so it continues to be the case to this very day. Radical Islamists plot the death of our citizens while maleducated Tranzi prats on the Supreme Court and elsewhere wail about about the "rights" of terrorists and how our country is being viewed by elitist pseudo-sophisticates in Europe. What such people fail to comprehend is the fact that not all people are motivated by a desire to "just get along" – to live in peace and harmony. Radical Islamists do not want to live with us in harmony, they want to destroy our civilization and restore the past glory of their own.

Ancient philosophers understood that the basic motivations of all men did not include tolerance, but rather what Plato called phobos, kerdos, and doxa: fear, self-interest, and honor. The point being that war is not an aberration of the human condition, it is the human condition. The Islamofascists are acting accordingly, and it is high time Western civilization (or what is left of it) did so as well.